


e lucevan le stelle

by cabinfever



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 16:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15586224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabinfever/pseuds/cabinfever
Summary: Long after the dawn has come, someone asks Ignis what his favorite place in all of Eos is. He’d seen the most beautiful and untouchable places in the world before his sight had been taken from him; surely he of all people would appreciate the simple beauty of the world.Ignis smiles at them, or at least where he thinks they are, and tells them, “I’m not quite sure.”He knows, of course, that the most beautiful thing has gone from this world, traded for the sun.But he won’t tell them that.





	e lucevan le stelle

**Author's Note:**

> written on request.

Long after the dawn has come, someone asks Ignis what his favorite place in all of Eos is. He’d seen the most beautiful and untouchable places in the world before his sight had been taken from him; surely he of all people would appreciate the simple beauty of the world.

Ignis smiles at them, or at least where he thinks they are, and tells them, “I’m not quite sure.”

He knows, of course, that the most beautiful thing has gone from this world, traded for the sun.

But he won’t tell them that.

Places, though…he can’t quite be sure.

Ignis might say Hammerhead; after all, it’s where he heard Noct’s voice for the first time in ten years. Noct might say the throne room, where Ignis had first smiled and held his hands.

For the both of them, though, it would probably be the place in Insomnia where they first truly saw the stars. It’s nothing too special; it was the observatory atop one of Insomnia’s skyscrapers. They went there when they were teenagers, just barely in love, and they were given a look at the myriad constellations that existed far above them, beyond the Wall and the lights of Insomnia. Even though it’s so much easier to see the stars when they go out beyond the Wall, nothing quite matches the way they’d looked when it was just the two of them staring up into the sky.

 

* * *

 

“Which one is that?” Noct asks, pointing up at the simulated sky.

Ignis squints up at it. “That’s a large one. The Fulgurian’s Judgment, I believe?”

Noct makes a quiet noise of admiration and leans up towards the ceiling as if it’ll bring him any significant distance closer to the stars themselves. “I like that one. It’s dramatic.”

“Here.” Ignis looks down at his control pad and taps a few buttons. The skyscape shifts, and a few stars grow brighter than the rest, picking out the shape of the constellation that Noct has chosen. “Now we can see it for what it truly is.”

“I love it,” Noct breathes, and he holds Ignis loosely by the wrist, still gazing upwards. His hair, at this angle, has fallen out of his face for once, baring his face to the synthetic sky. In his dark blue eyes, the starlight reflects and refracts, casting a thousand tiny diamonds in his gaze when he finally looks at Ignis. The pure wonder in his expression leaves his lips parted in a half grin, and his eyes are so, so wide.

Ignis can’t help it.

He leans in, holds Noct by the hand, and kisses him.

It’s nothing elaborate. It’s soft and it’s sweet and it’s perfect.

It’s their first. Ignis knows it won’t be their last.

When they part, Noct opens his eyes and smiles, and this time Ignis wants nothing more than to count the stars in his eyes.

 

* * *

 

They finally have the chance to see the stars when they’re out in Lucis. There are havens aplenty out in Duscae, and Gladio is more than happy to let them stay there in the tent as opposed to in a caravan or motel at an outpost.

“Y’know,” Noct says, “this is pretty great.”

“Indeed.”

Noct, in Ignis’s peripheral vision, ducks his head with a smile.

Ignis raises an eyebrow. “What’s that now?” he asks, amused. “Out with it, Noct. You look far too pleased with yourself.”

He shrugs. “Your voice does this...thing when you say that. Gets all deep.” Even as dark as it is outside, it’s hard to miss the way Noct’s face flushes. “I dunno. I just like it.”

“Do you?” Ignis asks, and just because he can, he pitches his voice lower, and there’s the flush again, and a subtle parting of Noct’s lips. Ignis smiles when Noct flusters around an answer, leaning in for a kiss instead.

This is preferable to talking, anyway.

“But really,” Noct says later, half lazy and half breathless, “they’re pretty, but they don’t compare to back home.”

Ignis stares up at the sky, tugging Noct a bit closer. “The observatory?” he asks.

“Yeah.” Noct turns his face to the side and presses it into Ignis’s chest, moving ever closer in search of comfort. “Yeah, that. That’s ours.”

“Ours,” Ignis agrees, and he lets himself drift off to sleep beneath the open sky, bathed in love and starlight.

 

* * *

 

Ignis goes blind.

He misses the stars.

 

* * *

 

For ten years, Ignis waits. He waits in darkness.

But Noct returns to him, as the visions have promised, and though Ignis never sees his face, he knows how he looks. He’s seen this Noct’s face for a decade of anguish, mourning him before he’s even died.

“I wish we could see them,” Noct murmurs, and Ignis can imagine him staring up at the poison clouds. “It would’ve been nice.”

“They’re still there,” Ignis replies softly. “Somewhere.” 

“Before we go,” Noct says, and he goes quiet.

“Noct?” he prompts after a few moments. If he didn’t know better, he’d think that Noct had wandered away in search of solitude. But he can feel the solid bulk of his presence even now, and he basks in the warmth of his nearby heat. Noct is here. Noct is alive.

“You know what’s going to happen, right?” Noct asks, and that’s enough of an acknowledgement of the future to make Ignis’s heart hurt all over again. No images of future agony flash through his head, but he’s memorized them enough by now to know that this does not end well.

Ignis presses his lips together and nods. He doesn’t trust his voice right now.

“So what if we...before I go. I want to make it official. Just for a little while.” Noct takes Ignis’s hand and says, a little desperately, “You know I’m not any good at words like this, Specs. Tell me you know what I mean, and tell me you’ll say yes.”

“I’d get down on one knee if you wanted,” Ignis offers, and even through the joke, he nearly chokes over tears.

Noct lets out an incredulous little laugh, only a little mirthless, and tugs Ignis in for a hug. “Thank you,” he whispers into the fabric of his shirt, giving his voice over to the spot where Ignis’s heart sits. “Thank you.”

They’re not a religious bunch by any means. There’s not much room for religion when the gods wake but leave their flock in darkness. Noct’s the closest thing they have to a god anyway, but he can’t exactly authorize his own wedding.

So it’s not official. Not really.

It doesn’t matter.

“Do you?” Noct asks, twining their fingers together.

“Always,” Ignis swears, because even without this, he would never stop being Noct’s.

They kiss beneath the too-dark sky, and it’s enough.

It’s enough.

There’s no ring. There’s no time for one. Besides, they’ve already shared the most important one. Ignis has burned for Noct, proving himself with the sheer might of his will and devotion. The scar around his finger is reminder enough.

They spend that night together.

Noctis kisses like he’s a man who’s already run out of time, though Ignis supposes he has. Every moment that they spend in Hammerhead is a moment they could have spent bringing back the light, but Noctis deserves some happiness in his final days and Ignis would die if it meant giving him some. He can feel Noct’s shaky smile against his lips, and that’s what makes him hold him by the back of the neck, threading his fingers through his hair as he brackets Noct between his legs. Ignis wants him close. He wants him so close that he never forgets what it’s like to have him.

Noctis accepts every bit of Ignis’s affection and returns it tenfold. “I missed you,” he breathes, and then, “I miss you.”

And then, later that night, when he must be sure Ignis is asleep, “I’ll miss you.”

Ignis hears him.

He mourns.

 

* * *

 

When they return to Insomnia, ten years after the world has fallen down around them, that building isn’t even standing anymore. There’s only rubble, smoldering in the light of Ardyn’s twisted mockery of the Wall.

Ignis remembers where it is, of course. A decade of darkness couldn’t make him forget his home. It couldn’t make him forget this place, and everything he’d shared with Noct here. Nothing will ever make him forget it.

“Later,” Noct promises. He twines his fingers with Ignis’s when they walk past the crumbling remains of the observatory. “Once this is over...” He trails off.

It’s a nice lie to tell themselves.

Ignis nods. “When this is over, we can rebuild it.”

He can hear the smile in Noct’s voice. “Yeah,” he rasps. “Yeah, I’d like that.” His fingers rub against the scar on Ignis’s left hand with a determined sort of focus.

So it’s decided.

 

* * *

 

But Ignis never lets them rebuild the observatory. Anything new would just cheapen the memory. He asks for a park, and for a bench where he can sit, and for a small pond where a few fish can lazily swim around. Prompto tells him it’s the most beautiful place in the whole city. Ignis truly wants to believe him.

He helps build it, of course. Noct would want him to keep busy.

The park is small but simple, and Ignis agonizes for days over how he’ll make it personal, and make it Noct’s. Then he turns his face to the sky, hearing distant crickets over the reclaimed city, and he realizes what he can do.

He knows the shape of the Fulgurian’s Judgment by heart.

Prompto and Gladio do the exact measurements and digging, using their sight to plot out the exact distances, but it’s Ignis who goes from memory. He’s the one who makes his way through the dirt on his knees, dragging his pallet of flowers behind him. They’re all sorts: forget-me-nots and snowdrops and gladiolus flowers, bowing gently beneath Ignis’s fingers. For once, he wears no gloves; he wants to feel the dirt between his fingers. He wants to carry a bit of this work with him. He lifts each young bloom into its place, feeling along the petals to make sure he’s chosen the right ones.

A few blooms go in each position, clustering up to form the representation of a star. It’s a simple enough concept, sure, but for Ignis it revives the spirit of this place, tens of stories down from where he first saw this constellation. The white snowdrops are for the hottest, brightest stars, and the gladiolus flowers take the place of the warm red giants. He’d had Iris come along with him to retrieve the flowers, trusting her to pick out the right ones.

He finds himself humming while he does the planting, working beneath the new sun in the center of Insomnia. The weight of others’ gazes falls heavily on his face, but he ignores them. There’s just the song, and the flowers, and the memory of starlight. He’s no Oracle, but he knows the old hymns of the stars, and that’s what rumbles in his chest, halfway to singing. The last time he’s heard this, it’d been with the divine echo of Lady Lunafreya’s voice accompanying it. The last time he’d heard this, he’d seen the truth of the astrals’ great prophecy.

Dirt shifts beneath his grasp, and he quickly stops when he realizes he’s been holding on too tightly to one of his poor flowers. He reshapes the dirt clod holding its roots in place, tenderly setting it into its new home beneath the sun. “There you are,” he murmurs, and he’s surprised to hear his own voice rough with tears. He swallows around the pressure in his throat. “Good as new, aren’t we?”

He moves on, taking the pallet with him, but it’s absurdly light. Ignis turns and pats along the bottom of it, but it’s empty. He’s done.

He can imagine it now: the flowers trace out the shape of the Fulgurian, ready to defeat some ancient evil. Judgment. Retribution.

Maybe they should rename it for Noct. Ignis still remembers the sight of him receiving the Fulgurian’s blessing, eyes gleaming scarlet as lightning sparked around him. If anyone is a divine warrior, Noct is.

Was.

He sighs. It’s not like him to forget semantics.

He stands and goes to wipe off his hands so that he can clean up his work and leave the park complete at last, but he notices something odd. The dirt has gathered at the base of his fingers, collecting in rings there. Ignis can feel it when he flexes his fingers, restricting his movement in a way that’s almost comforting. It’s because things are meant to be there, he supposes with a small laugh to himself. It’s like the ring he never had; the one he and Noct never got.

Like this, wrapped around his ring finger, the dirt matches the scar on the finger beside it like a little matched pair for devotion.

On instinct, Ignis raises his other hand to touch the silver skull hanging at his neck. It’s his other mark of loyalty and love, his first gift from Noct but certainly not the last. Maybe he’ll melt it down and make a proper ring after all.

But he doesn’t know if he can live without the gentle weight of it around his neck, collaring him with the reminder of his duty and how he had failed.

A flash, and Noct sits before him on a tarnished throne, summoning the kings to his side.

Ignis gasps and blinks again, forcing his vision back into darkness. It’s a cruel joke by the gods to force him to see Noct’s death even after it has come to pass. The skull around his neck feels heavier even now. Ignis threads his fingers through the blades of grass, wishing desperately for his knives that he can reach no longer. They’re gone with Noct, somewhere beyond the sunlight.

Noct had died in darkness. He dies before he could ever see the stars again.

So Ignis will have to build the stars for him.

The people of Lucis keep quiet when they come around. There’s no statue here, and no plaque to tell them about the memory held within the grassy boundaries, but they all treat the ground with the same reverence as they might treat a tomb. _The Prince’s Park,_ they call it.

And quieter, when they think the king’s blind glaive cannot hear them, _The King’s Rest._

Ignis hears them.

He’s glad, though, that they’re willing to respect this place. This place that once towered towards the stars now sits surrounded by aged metal and broken glass. Insomnia isn’t whole anymore. Not in the ways that count. But this place, somehow, keeps a bit of that old spirit alive. It keeps Noct alive, even.

He goes there every day, even in the winter when the pond freezes over and the sound of running water is reduced to near silence. In the spring, the flowers bloom and fill the air with sweetness. Ignis ends up calling in a favor from Tenebrae and gets an ulwaat sapling sent over to sit beside the bench.

The grass is probably soft enough to nap in.

Noct would like it here, he thinks.

Ignis turns his face to the sky, hoping that the stars look down on him tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at [triplehelix!](http://www.triplehelix.tumblr.com)


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